Richelle Mead - THORN QUEEN

“Go!” I ordered harshly.

“As you command.”

Volusian vanished, eyes narrowed, confident our bond was about to break. As soon as he was gone, I fell onto the bed, nearly ready to pass out. Would it work? Or had I just broken the last fragments of our bond? I was too afraid to reach out and test the link. I didn’t have the strength.

The door suddenly unlocked. Nightshade time. With a sickening thought, I realized that if it was the original kind, I would almost certainly lose that control of Volusian. If it was Markelle’s decoy, I could hold onto my strength.

Abigail entered, a cup in hand and Markelle in her wake. The gentry girl’s eyes were down, her whole posture meek. I bit my lip at their approach, waiting to see what my future held.

It tasted as bitter as always, but as I drank, Markelle lifted her eyes. There was nothing obvious in them, no wink, no expectation. Yet, somehow, I knew. I knew. It was the fake again.

Satisfied that I’d swallowed it all, Abigail gave me a withering glance. “We need you cleaned up. That fool is coming for you again later tonight, and he did a number on that dress last time. He wants you looking good, though, so…” She gave a half-hearted shrug. Naturally, I couldn’t tell her that my dress’s rumpled and slightly torn state had nothing to do with Leith’s sexual aggression, but, rather, an angry spirit bent on killing me.

Markelle’s eyes were downcast once more. “Should I get her a new dress?”

“No. You’ve got to clean up too. Art’s going to be here in a little while for you.”

The girl flinched, but Abigail didn’t seem to notice. But then, why would she? She didn’t notice any of these girls, not really. And I knew what those words meant. Markelle’s time had come. “I’ll send in that freckled one, once she wakes up again.”

I realized that she was me and that I should allegedly be going under. I sank back against the covers, blinking like I was trying to stay awake. The two of them left, Markelle giving me one last fleeting glance. There were a lot of things in her wide eyes as she looked at me. Fear. Hope. Anxiety.

I exhaled once they were gone and sat up. Plan time. My muscles were still weak, but they reminded me more of what you’d feel after a hard run. What had Markelle said before? Twelve hours was the normal dose? I was at that point. The nightshade had to be significantly wearing off. Theoretically, my magic should be returning too and-

“Why, hello,” I murmured. I’d sent my mind out into the room and had just barely-barely-felt the tingle of air and water. I wasn’t going to be blowing anyone apart soon, but the magic was coming back. And when it did, these assholes were fucked.

But I needed to wait this out. I wasn’t going to jump the gun like I had with Volusian. Every minute brought the magic and my strength back. I had to use this downtime to assess the situation. Abigail was in the house still. Art and Leith were eventually coming back-together or apart, I didn’t know. The one thing I felt confident of was that I did not want to face all of them at the same time. That meant Abigail had to be taken out first, but I was going to need help.

In what must have been a little over an hour, Cariena slipped in with a pink silk dress. It reminded me of something Maiwenn would wear. Apparently, no one had gotten the memo that redheads don’t wear pink. I stood up and took the dress from Cariena, promptly tossing it on the bed. She looked aghast that I’d gotten up without falling over. Considering all that had happened recently, I couldn’t blame her.

“Your m-majesty, what-”

“Cariena, we’re getting out of here.”

“We can’t!”

“Oh, we can, and we are. Where’s Markelle?” I had a feeling I was going to need an accomplice with a bit more boldness. “And Raina?” I rarely saw the third gentry girl around here and had no clue to her attitude, but she needed to be accounted for.

“Raina’s in her room. She was-disrespectful. And Markelle is preparing herself.”

Preparing herself for a lifetime as a sex slave. I grimaced. “And Abigail?”

“She’s upstairs. Watching…” Cariena groped for the unfamiliar word. “…the television.”

“Okay, okay.” My mind was spinning now. It seemed to be recovering faster than my body. “Here’s the deal. I need a weapon. Is there anything you’ve seen that would work as one?”

“We can’t do this. We can’t-”

“We can,” I ordered, making my voice hard and fierce. This girl had been beaten into weakness, and if those shamans scared her, I would make sure that I-her queen-scared her more. “And you will obey me. You’re my subject. You’ll get out of this alive-I swear it. You’ll see your family.”

She was still scared out of her mind, but she gave a weak nod. “I see Abigail and the Red Snake Man carry weapons, but there are none around. I couldn’t touch them anyway.”

“Alright. We’ll make do with…hey, is the garage attached to the house?”

“Garage?”

“Another building. One where they keep cars.” I recalled the garage but didn’t know if it connected directly to the house. Surely she knew what a car was.

She nodded. “Yes. They go in and out of it sometimes. It’s attached to the kitchen.”

“When you come down here, whose room do you pass first out there in the hall? Mine or Markelle’s?”

“Yours…” Cariena was clearly puzzled now.

“Perfect. I know what we’re going to do. Take me to Markelle.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and I knew this was the turning point of whether she could help or not. The door was unlocked; I didn’t need her. But if I didn’t have her assistance, I’d have to knock her out to keep her out of the way.

“This way,” she said at last.

Markelle nearly threw herself into my arms when we walked into her room.

“Your majesty! I knew you’d do it. I knew you could…”

She wore a strappy little red sundress and had been applying makeup. Funny. I got dressed up like gentry royalty, and the girls here were dressed like human whores.

“Shh,” I said. “We’re not out of here yet.”

I hastily whispered my plan to them. Markelle understood instantly, and although Cariena still seemed terrified, she also appeared determined. I returned to my room, body tensed for action as I waited for my plan to unfold. Pressing my ear to the closed door, I listened as Cariena’s feet thudded up the stairs. Presumably she spoke to Abigail, but I couldn’t hear anything. A few moments later, two sets of feet came downstairs, walked past my room, and went to Markelle’s.

I opened my door a crack to make sure the hall was empty. Next door, I could hear Markelle having the nervous breakdown we’d planned-saying she was afraid to leave, afraid to meet this man, didn’t know what to wear…. Abigail, clearly irritated, began to scold her, much as she had responded to Leith’s whining. I waited to hear no more and turned in the opposite direction, heading for the stairs.

When I reached the main floor, I did a double-take. The house was beautiful, all new construction and designer decorating as befitted the neighborhood Art lived in. The gentry sex dungeon below us kind of detracted from the maple cupboards and crown molding, though. All the curtains were closed, the windows covered with iron grating, and outside I could just barely make out the Sleeping Beauty hedges blocking the windows too. Art’s lawn maintenance had been about more than aesthetics. The patio drapes I’d so admired weren’t laced with silver thread. It was iron.

The garage was adjacent to the kitchen, just as Cariena had said. The top half of the door leading out to it had a window covered with more iron grating. I turned the doorknob. Locked. There were no signs of keys anywhere, which meant I’d have to do it the hard way. First, I double-checked the kitchen and living room, looking for any other weapon options. On a good day, I could have taken Abigail with my own fists. This was not a good day. Kitchen drawers revealed butter knives, nothing sharper.